Table of Contents
Publication Info
Acknowledgements
Introduction: My Strange Addiction
The Girls At A Glance
Chapter 1: Meet The Teen Moms
Chapter 2: 16 and Pregnant...and Famous
Chapter 3: Where Do They Find These People?
Chapter 4: Making TV Magic: Tales From Behind The Scenes
Chapter 5: Before They Were Teen Moms
Chapter 6: The Farrah You Didn't See On MTV
Chapter 7: Dear Sophia: A Letter To My Granddaughter
Chapter 8: Kail's Incredible Story of Survival
Chapter 9: Jenelle's Wild & Crazy Life: A Timeline
Chapter 10: Corey & Leah: Doomed To Fail?
Chapter 11: Girls Behaving Badly
Chapter 12: Bad Boys & Baby Daddies
Chapter 13: Butch Baltierra Behind Bars: The Exclusive Jailhouse Interview
Chapter 14: Will Katie Yeager Be The Breakout Star of Teen Mom 3?
Chapter 15: Where Are They Now? Amazing Stories of Life After MTV
Chapter 16: 87 Things You Might Not Know About The Teen Moms
Chapter 17: Teen Mom Survival Guide - A to Z
Photo Credits
Teen Mom Confidential
Secrets & Scandals From MTV's Most Controversial Series
By Sean Daly & Ashley Majeski
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2013
Roundup Publishing, Santa Monica, CA
This book is protected under the copyright laws of The United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without written permission except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For more information, contact [email protected]
First printing: April, 2013
Printed in The United States of America
ASIN: B00CGTWKPQ
Think you know everything about Amber Portwood, Jenelle Evans, Kailyn Lowry, Maci Bookout, Farrah Abraham, Catelynn Lowell, Chelsea Houska, Leah Messer and the rest of MTV's famous young moms?
Think again! From how the girls of 16 and Pregnant were cast to the Teen Mom stars' outrageous diva demands and the touching letter from Stormie Clark to the granddaughter Farrah won't let her see, these are the true, behind-the-scenes stories of TV's most fascinating and controversial shows.
Forget the rumors. Teen Mom Confidential is packed with first hand memories, newly published photos and updated interview with the cast members everyone is talking about.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank
Farrah Abraham, Daniel Alvarez
Butch Baltierra, Jamie Blackwell
Cleondra Carter, Stormie Clark
Tyler Cooksey, Casey Cunningham
Danielle Cunningham, Ashley Danielson
Nicole Fokos, Hope Harbert
John Hidalgo, Jordan Howard
Andrew Lewis, Kailyn Lowry
Amy LaDawn Nichols, Ebony Jackson-Rendon
Jamie McKay, Alethea Montante
Sarah Roberts, Gary Shirley
Josh Smith, Katie Stack
Sabrina Solares, Dawn Spears
Robert Thompson, Toni Ziegler
and the many other family, crew and cast members
who agreed to be interviewed for this book.
By Ashley Majeski
My name is Ashley and I am a reality TV junkie. I'm the first to admit I have a strange life: I spend my nights on the couch watching cheesy “unscripted” shows and my days blogging about them for TheAshleysRealityRoundup.com. Never could I have imagined how much of my website - and my life - would be taken up by MTV's controversial docu-series 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom.
For the past three years I have been learning everything I can about Amber Portwood, Maci Bookout, Catelynn Lowell, Jenelle Evans, Chelsea Houska, Kailyn Lowry, Farrah Abraham, Leah Messer and the rest of basic cable's most notorious young mothers. Writing about this bunch can be a full time job. There are arrests, weddings, divorces, daddy dramas...
In just the first few weeks of 2013:
* Leah had a baby.
* Jenelle suffered a miscarriage, dumped husband Courtland Rogers (after just 53 days!) and filed assault charges against him.
* Kail revealed she was pregnant again and suffers from bipolar disorder.
* Farrah was arrested for D.U.I., appeared in her first adult film - and was blasted on social media for waxing her three year-old daughter's unibrow.
* Catelynn and fiancé Tyler Baltierra began filming episodes of an upcoming reality series called Couples Therapy - just months before their planned wedding.
As you can see, it's tough to keep up! Luckily, I have help. Back in 2011, I met Sean Daly, a reporter for the New York Post. He needed some information for a story about the new season of 16 and Pregnant. I had never thought of myself as any kind of authority on the subject, but then it hit me. Perhaps after years of documenting these girls' dramatic journeys from small town obscurity to the front page of TMZ, I had in fact become an expert on the new MTV: “Maternity Television.”
Sean and I ended up working together on several projects and eventually decided to collaborate on this book. Our goal was to tell the complete - and uncensored - stories of these shows and their stars: the good, the bad and what got left on the cutting room floor. We spent a full year reaching out to everyone we could find who had ever been associated with the productions: crew, family members and especially the girls themselves. We dug up shocking details MTV never wanted anyone to see - like how some important events (including one Teen Mom 2 girl's scandalous hookup) were completely staged or recreated.
MTV basically invented the genre of reality television back in 1992 with The Real World. But these shows have been groundbreaking in a completely different way. Not too many years ago - (before Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears) - girls who got pregnant in high school were sent to “visit their aunt in the country” to prevent bringing shame on their families. Now they're welcomed into our living rooms as unwitting role models - baby bellies in full view - to share their polarizing stories of what happens when you get knocked up before you can vote.
Each year, almost 370,000 American teens incur an unplanned pregnancy. Only a dozen or so make it to MTV. This is the true story of those girls, and how three shows changed their lives - and reality television - forever.
The Great Debate: Does MTV Glamorize Pregnancy?
“The message that I take from the shows is that it's cool to become pregnant… Being a teenage mother is making them famous.”
- LaToya Hagins, Examiner.com
“Anyone who has seen even one episode of either of these shows can see that these girls' lives have been completely turned upside-down by their pregnancies. Most struggle just to keep their baby's father in the picture on top of trying to finish high school and scraping together enough money to feed, clothe, and otherwise care for a newborn.”
- Melanie Boysaw, Berkeley Political Review
“I had an abortion when I was 16. Because that's what I should have done. Otherwise I would now have a 20-year-old kid. Anyway, those are the things that people shouldn't be dishonest about. 16 and Pregnant? Getting rewarded for being pregnant when you're a teenager? Are you serious? I mean, that makes me want to kill somebody.”
- Chelsea Handler, talk show host
“I'm so tired of hearing that Teen Mom glam
orizes teen pregnancy. I've been on my own and a single parent since I was 17. Is that glamorous? I don't have relationships with either of my parents and I struggle dealing with teenage emotions and adult responsibilities. That's glamorous?”
- Kailyn Lowry, Teen Mom 2, via Twitter
Of the 47 baby mamas featured during the first four seasons of MTV's 16 and Pregnant....
LOCATION
28 (59%) are from the south (south of West Virginia and east of Texas)
9 (19%) are from the mid-west
6 (13%) are from the north
4 (9%) are from the west
Texas claimed the most participants (8), followed by Florida and Pennsylvania (4 each).
2 girls were from Riverview, Florida: (Markai Durham and Jennifer Del Rio)
EDUCATION
31 (66%) Graduated high school
6 (13%) Earned a G.E.D.
4 (9%) Dropped out
6 (13%) Still enrolled
22 girls were at one time enrolled in college or trade school
RELATIONSHIPS
9 (26%) married their baby daddies
5 (56%) of those marriages ended in divorce
15 (32%) are currently together with the fathers of their babies.
BABIES
49 babies have been born
25 (51%) were girls
24 (49%) were boys
There have been 2 sets of twins
The most common baby names are Ayden and Noah, with two girls naming their babies each of those names (although they are spelled differently)
3 (9%) have chosen adoption
LEGAL TROUBLES
12 (25%) have been arrested
3 (6%) have served time in jail
3 (6%) have lost custody of their children
They began as ordinary high school girls - cheerleaders, athletes, future college students - and ended up as the most famous moms in America. With nearly seven percent of all girls between 15 and 19 becoming pregnant in 2008, MTV casting directors had no shortage of underage baby bumpers to choose from for their groundbreaking new docu-series, 16 and Pregnant.
Season one premiered to over two million viewers on June 11, 2009 and featured just six one-hour episodes. Each storyline was more gripping than the next: unsupportive families, the painful choice to give up a child for adoption, the tragic death of a loved one. These stories are “ones you treat with kid gloves,” former executive producer Liz Gateley told the New York Post. “There are moments that you have to turn the cameras off and you have to comfort them.”
Ultimately, four of the girls – Farrah Abraham, Maci Bookout, Amber Portwood and Catelynn Lowell - were selected to continue documenting their journeys on the spinoff, Teen Mom, in 2009.
AMBER PORTWOOD
(b. May 14, 1990)
The hot-tempered Hoosier had been dating Gary Shirley for more than two years when she became pregnant with daughter Leah (b. November 12, 2008). They planned to marry, but the relationship quickly turned violent. During season one of Teen Mom, Amber was caught on camera trying to choke Gary after he insulted her father. Weeks later, cameras rolled again as she punched and kicked him in front of their daughter. Amber was charged with two felony counts of domestic battery and spent one night in jail. Gary was eventually granted custody of Leah as Amber's personal and legal woes mounted.
FARRAH ABRAHAM
(b. May 31, 1991)
Life for the aspiring model and actress from Council Bluffs, Iowa changed overnight when boyfriend Derek Underwood was killed in a December 2008 car wreck. Derek, Farrah has maintained, was the first and only love of her life - though she revealed in a 2012 autobiography that he was unaware he was the father of her daughter Sophia (b. February 23, 2009). Despite his paternity, Farrah refused to allow Derek's family to see the baby for years, prompting a lawsuit from his mother. In January 2010, things also got complicated at home, when Farrah's own mother, Debra Danielson, was charged with assaulting her. “That was, like, the lowest point with my family,” Farrah revealed during a Teen Mom after show interview.
CATELYNN LOWELL
(b. March 12, 1992)
The high school senior from Algonac, Michigan - and her boyfriend Tyler Baltierra - struggled for months with their decision to give daughter Carolynn “Carly” Elizabeth (b. May 18, 2009) up for adoption. The couple paid tribute to their baby by each getting tattoos bearing her name. Catelynn and Tyler have been together since the seventh grade and plan to marry on their ninth anniversary on July 15, 2013 - even though he is already her stepbrother. (Tyler's father Darl “Butch” Baltierra, a mullet-sporting, recovering drug addict who is in and out of jail, married Catelynn's mother April after their kids started dating). Just 16 when she became pregnant, Catelynn told MTV.com she understood what birth control was, but never knew how to get it and was afraid of everyone knowing she was sexually active.
MACI BOOKOUT
(b. August 10, 1991)
A popular, outgoing softball player, Maci had dreams of going away to college and becoming a broadcast journalist. Then she got pregnant. Suddenly, she was enrolled in courses at the local community college - and struggling to take care of newborn son Bentley (b. October 27, 2008) without much help from baby daddy Ryan Edwards. The couple lived together briefly and even considered marriage, but their tumultuous relationship eventually imploded. The fight over custody and visitation with Bentley became even more strained when Maci began dating former childhood pal Kyle King, who is four years her senior.
Teen Mom 2, which premiered January 11, 2011, introduced a new crop of girls with even more legal woes and daddy dramas:
LEAH MESSER
(b. April 24, 1992)
Once a popular cheerleader, country girl Leah is now the mother of twin girls Aliannah and Aleeah (b. December 16, 2009). A graduate of Herbert Hoover High School near Charleston, West Virginia, Leah got pregnant on prom night - the first time she had sex with her boyfriend of one month, Corey Simms. She went into labor three months early and was forced to remain on bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy. Leah married Corey on October 17, 2010 but they divorced six months later after he learned that she cheated on him just a week before their wedding. With one of her girls suffering from a mystery ailment that slowed her development, Leah continued working part-time as a dental assistant while taking online courses at Mountain University. She eventually began dating pipe-liner Jeremy Calvert. They married on April 4, 2012 - just months after Leah suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage. Her second marriage is “different from Corey and my relationship,” Leah told Us Weekly. “Because we were kinda like forcing it... With Jeremy, you know when you're supposed to be with somebody and you're not.”
JENELLE EVANS
(b. December 19, 1991)
The ultimate bad girl from Oak Island, North Carolina has a growing rap sheet and a volatile relationship with her mother, Barbara. No longer in contact with baby daddy Charles Andrew Lewis, she drinks, smokes pot, steals credit cards and isn't afraid to open up a can of whoop ass on anyone who crosses her. When Jenelle couldn't curb her excessive partying, Barbara stepped in to take temporary custody of son Jace (b. August 2, 2009).
KAILYN LOWRY
(b. March 14, 1992)
A former high school lacrosse player from Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Kailyn wanted to give her baby what she never had: a loving, two parent family. She worked two jobs to support son Isaac (b. January 18, 2010), while tackling a full course load at Northampton Community College. Early on, “Kail” said she tried to hide the pregnancy from friends at school. When her mother Suzi - who struggles with addiction - moved into a motel with her boyfriend, leaving Kailyn essentially homeless, the teen who dreamed of becoming a dental hygienist took up residence at baby daddy Jo Rivera's house. Unfortunately, they fought all the time and he wanted nothing to do with her - until she started dating someone else. Kailyn's dad, Ray, took off when she was just six months old. He now lives in Texas in a home with no back door, but a lock on the f
reezer - to protect his $200 stash of meat! She saw him again for the first time during her episode of 16 and Pregnant, but hasn't had contact with him since.
CHELSEA HOUSKA
(b. August 29, 1991)
A star softball player in Vermillion, South Dakota, Chelsea's dreams of attending beauty school were put on hold when she went into labor five weeks early with daughter Aubree Skye (b. September 7, 2009) on the first day of her senior year. The youngest of four daughters, she received lots of support from her family - especially dad, Randy, a dentist - but almost none from boyfriend Adam Lind. Chelsea tries every option to make their relationship work, despite Adam's constant claims that she is “nagging” and “annoying.” But when he goes M.I.A for three weeks after Aubree's birth - and sends Chelsea an abusive text message calling their daughter “a mistake” - she decides to cut the cord and promptly changes Aubree's last name to her own.
TEEN MOM 2 CANCELLED: IS JENELLE TO BLAME?
January 29, 2013
According to the New York Post, the decision to end the show followed several months of erratic, headline-grabbing behavior by the loose cannon star. In that time, Jenelle became pregnant (again), got married, lost her baby and publicly demanded a divorce. She also posted what appeared to be disturbing play-by-play updates of her seven week pregnancy ending on Twitter. “And this is the end, I think,” she shared with 632,800 followers. “Feel light headed.” Hours later, Jenelle tweeted that she was with her ex-fiancé, Gary Head, at a North Carolina bar. Insiders said producers were concerned the attention-seeking reality star had become too much of a liability for the show.
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